The role of joy in the relationship between parental support, coach-athlete relationship and intention to drop out in young team athletes

The aim of the present study was to investigate the mediating role of enjoyment in the relationship between parental support, coach-athlete relationship and intention to drop out in young team athletes, based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT). The study has a cross-sectional design and all data collection was done via digital questionnaires. The participants included 101 team athletes, divided into 49 male participants and 52 female participants and were between 15 and 20 years old (M=16.65, SD=1.42). Based on the purpose of the present study, two hypotheses were presented 1) Enjoyment mediates the relationship between parental support and intention to drop out, where better parental support is expected to lead to higher levels of happiness and in turn reduced intention to drop out, and 2) Enjoyment mediates the relationship between coach-athlete relationship and intention to drop out, where a better coach-player relationship is expected to lead to higher levels of happiness and thus reduced intention to drop out. The hypotheses were then tested via two separate mediation analyses. The results indicate that happiness had a statistically significant mediating role in the relationship between parental support, coach-athlete relationship and intention to drop out